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Thursday, 30 May 2013

As I'm writing this, it 6:40 pm and I'm sitting in the backyard of our house, basking in the sun. The garden is done! I mean, a garden is constantly an ongoing project if there ever was one, but all of the major projects are finished, I have cleaned up and there are blooming flowers and greenery all over the place. It's fabulous.

Our backyard is well shielded from wind, but we get a lot of sun. Some if the neighbours can look down on us from their balconies but that's fine, more important is that it's out if sight from the street.

As I sit here I can hear harmonica music from a radio, someone coughing as they walk by on the street and the distant noise of traffic. I can imagine sitting here with A just reading, or weeding in the garden patch or barbecuing with friends, every day after work the coming months. As long as the weather is OK, I think this summer can be a really good one.

Wednesday, 29 May 2013

A while ago I got problems with my right hand after working a lot in front of the computer. My fingers started getting numb and my wrist ached. Since that's no good, I got an ergonomic, vertical computer-mouse. Apparently the vertical grip is more natural than the horizontal. Sounds logical. Anyway, I think that helped a bit! After a while I started getting the numbness again, and now I've been trying to use my left hand as well, when working. It doesn't work as well with precision drawing, but surfing, working in Excel and so on works fine. As I now need two "mice" at my workstation (the vertical one only works for the right hand) I was extra happy when my brother got me this pretty blue one as a gift! Stylish every-day items makes the every-day more glamorous, and that's never bad.

Tuesday, 28 May 2013

Since I really don't like the taste of sushi, the prospect of an evening of "cooking" it as a team building event with my colleagues didn't appeal to me at first... But that was before I realized how much fun the actual assembling was! And how pretty those little bites can be! Very stylish. I opted for vegetarian versions - I simply don't eat raw fish - but I still don't like the rice-taste so I'm not sure I'm going to eat all if them. I definitely enjoyed making them though, and I think I have some talent when it came to the production.

Monday, 27 May 2013

On this picture there's three things me, A and my dad have been working on this lovely warm weekend. The transformation of our "garden" is all but complete, except for some cleaning, but I am so happy about this new space I can't wait for my "real" photos to be transferred to the computer before showing you some if it. It is just so great! Thanks dad for coming all the way from Sweden to build this with us!

Thursday, 23 May 2013

So today I got this note in my mailbox that I had a package waiting for me at the post office. Exciting! I didn't know who it was from but I guessed it was a birthday gift... So after work me, E and Nemo took a walk to the city centre and I got my gift! Since the weather was great I decided to open it on the bench in the garden with a glass of rosé wine. E agreed and Nemo did not mind.

Happy dog!

Worlds cutest gift with a pink bow!

Worlds loveliest card with tree-houses!

Worlds coolest print from worlds greatest friend L!

This might just be the loveliest illustration I ever saw. Thank you so much L, I love it, you know me so well!

Today one of the gifts A ordered to me on-line got delivered to my office. I don't mind if a gift is a little late - let's spread out the fun as long as possible! And what a perfect gift this was...
I Love you A!

Wednesday, 22 May 2013

My favourite in this years Eurovision Song contest did not impress most of the others when I was watching it at E's place on Saturday with some friends. In my opinion Cezar from Romania did the most unique and impressive numbers this year! OK, the text might not have been so unique, but the costume, the show! Well, I guess the girl in the thunderstorm dress (was it Latvia?) did a quite similar number when it comes to the getting-taller-bit, but anyway. He did have the most unique voice, and I was really impressed. I also likes Anouk from Netherlands. Made me think of when I was 14 and we played her song "Nobody's wife" in music class. I never watch any of the pre-finals shows, not even the Swedish finals, but the international one is fun to watch.

Tuesday, 21 May 2013

Today I'm having a bit of a crappy day. It started with me falling down the stairs on my way down to the kitchen in the morning, and I guess it continued pretty much more downhill after that. My toe is blue and my back hurt a lot... So instead of thinking about today I'm going to focus (hehe, you'll get the pun soon...) on something more fun!

This is my new camera. I got it as a birthday present from my dear mum, dad and brother and as soon as I started using it I just wanted to take pictures of everything again. My old camera got damaged when I dropped in on asphalt half a year ago in Holland and the quality of my pictures really worsened after that. Lately I've used my iPhone more than my Nicon. Anyway my new camera is a Nicon D7000 and its awesome. I'm no camera pro at all, but the difference is in some ways so big. Light sensitivity is so much better, and I can record videos! Since it's a Nicon like my old one, my lenses are compatible but my all round lens is damaged too, so when we were in Istanbul (that's when I got the camera) I gave myself a birthday gift- a used 17-70mm Sigma lens. My new set works like a charm, now I just have to start learning more about it and taking it for some photo-walks. How about it K?

On the 19th of May 2013 I turned 30. Wooot wooot! I got celebrated by A with breakfast, cake and gifts in bed - the best way to start a day in my opinion. It should happen every day. I'm just saying. Among other amazing things I got this cream coloured satchel from Cambridge Satchel Company. I've been wanting one forever and this one is just perfect!

Don't worry mom, the red colour is getting less intense every time I wash it!

In the evening I had some friends over for a very child-inspired party.
It was fun, colourful and ended reasonably early, just as I like it! Here's my inspirationboard on pinterest for this little get-together.

Candy and cake table. The cake is a gift from the always amazing E. She rocks.

Me and a couple of my lovely friends, C and T, representing France and Finland

Cake! Dress from Topshop, and down to the left you can see my hair-inspiration for the night.

It's impossible not to start playing with balloons once you have some in a room

We were so incredebly lucky with the weather this weekend. It was above 25 degrees and sunny. So we had to go out in the garden and play a bit too.

Wednesday, 15 May 2013

As I've already warned you, this years celebrations of my birthday (the big three-oh, you know) is turning in to a three week long party. And that just how it's supposed to be, in my opinion. Anyway, after being celebrated in Istanbul last week, today was the day my super-nice colleagues decided to welcome me into adulthood with a lovely cake, a gift certificate and a really pretty (but hard to take pictures of) flower bouquet. It even smells good, and the cats are mesmerized.

Our long awaited trip to Istanbul was this weekend. Oh my, that's a lovely city. And what a great place to spend time with with family, eat (not always so good food) at amazing restaurants and visit beautiful mosques and other fantastic buildings. We lived quite close to the shopping street Istiklal, in an area with a lot of small and exotic antique shops. It's too bad it's so hard to transport stuff back home, otherwise it would have been real fun to browse through those stores... we also did some "modern" shopping, visiting the shopping mall Kanyon where I bough some lovely shoes. Mostly we spent time in the old city, doing all of the touristy things that you have to do while visiting Istanbul.

Monday, 6 May 2013

So today I've spent almost every minute outside. The weather has been pretty good and I can even feel my face being a little hot right now so I guess I caught some sun! Me and A have been working hard spring-cleaning the garden and doing all the prep-work before painting the fence. Our white picketed fence...
My main task was to scrub the garden furniture. we had almost given up on the and planned to buy new ones, but after some scrubbing we realized that we can keep these. I don't have an after picture because I didn't finish it all, but it's really not bad what a bit of elbow-grease can do! I did however take a short break to go hang out at E's place for a while, to play Uno and eat home baked cookies... Perfect!
Now me and A are off to see Iron Man III, I've longed for this one!!

Thursday, 2 May 2013

Wednesday, 1 May 2013

I love May. I have especially high hope for this month this particular year. I'm hoping for 31 days filled with sunshine, working in the garden, barbecues, a trip to Istanbul, hanging out with friends, spending quality time with my family and turning 30!

It started off good with a walk with my friend E and her dog Nemo, and then a trip to a garden centre with my friend F who just got her drivers license. I love garden centers! I can spend a day there and a fortune... I got back with a bunch of great stuff and couldn't resist working outside in the rain for an hour...

Well, hello there!

This is a diary, of sorts, written by me, Annika, architect turned graphic design student. I spent my first 26 years in Sweden, the following 7 in Norway and now I live with my husband and two cats in Brunei, on the tropical island Borneo. Read my blog if you - like me - are fond of traveling, dressing up, reading fantasy, watching loads of Netflix, looking at cats, dancing Lindy hop and eating candy. Occasionally I get creative and, well, create stuff. When that happens I'll most likely blog about it. Welcome!